Geographically blessed, Turkey is the perfect location to generate renewable power, particularly solar energy, as it is situated in the Mediterranean sun belt. Today, the country announced that they are boosting their solar capabilities and sourcing out more power so it is less dependent on fossil fuels.
The average sunlight time in Turkey is very high at 2640 hours per year with an average amount of energy pegged at 1500 kilowatt per hour.
The favorable conditions in Turkey has led many foreign companies to invest in the country’s renewable power projects, including financial support from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The organization made an additional EUR 500 million investment, amounting to a total of EUR 1.5 billion funds provided to Turkish banks in the form of loans and capital market for on-lending to private companies.
Although Turkey is just starting their projects on renewable power, as the nation has been heavily dependent on fossil fuels previously, where oil and gas accounts for 90% of their current energy supply. In addition, the country has been known as one of the largest drilling and extraction sites in Eurasia, but they still borrow energy sources from other nations in the Middle East.
So far, Iraq remains a top supplier of crude in the Middle East, unaffected by the issue of oversupply on the world market. Despite the unstable price of petrol, companies offering industrial oil and gas solutions maintain their operations, particularly in engineering, construction, repair, and maintenance of gas treatment plants.
However, Turkey’s plan to generate power from renewable sources hoping it can help the country in different ways, particularly in decreasing the cost of electricity and generating more work for the country.
The government may still encounter a few challenges before executing the renewable projects related to high licensing, connection fees, and high financing costs related to exchange rate fluctuations.
In addition to the challenges, solar power appears to be less developed than other renewable energy sources (hydro, wind, geothermal).
“Solar energy has lower capacity than other renewable resources and it is not considered a priority in the country. The sector is notably decentralised, consisting of many individual installations such as rooftop photovoltaic panels, but overall capacity isn’t that great once added up,” said Danièle Scalisi, advisor on sustainable development at the French Embassy in Turkey.
Nevertheless, Turkey remains competitive in the sustainable market, especially in the solar photovoltaic industry.
“Solar energy is cost competitive, efficient and reliable enough to add considerable value to the country’s power generation portfolio,” said First Solar technical director Karim Asali.
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